On the night of April 1, Turkey experienced a bizarre April Fools' Day joke. A television commercial by Ulker — Turkey’s giant food company especially famous for its sweets and chocolates, including Godiva — was perceived by the supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a signal of an impending military coup attempt. Thousands of these supporters hit the streets, chanted for the beloved president and vowed to protect him against any attack. Other protesters burned or “hanged” candy bars made by the Ulker company and posted the scenes online, showing what they would do to the traitors.

All in all, the incident — hashtagged on social media by critics jokingly as #gofretdarbesi (“chocolate bar coup”) — indicated just how high-strung Turkey has become.

Ulker is one of Turkey’s most established food producers and can be compared to Nestle in its brand value and variety of products. The company, spread over the Middle East, is also a rising global star. It bought Godiva, the world-famous chocolate company, in 2007 and opened a coffee shop in the heart of London.

The Ulker brand also evokes a certain identity in Turkish society. The founder, the late Sabri Ulker, was a pious Muslim who gave the company a traditional reputation among Turkey’s conservatives. That is why during the hyper-secularist “post-modern coup” of the late 1990s Turkey’s hawkish generals discouraged Ulker products. I have personally seen Turkish secularists who would ideologically buy the products of Eti, another food giant, rather than Ulker, which they saw as “reactionary.”